19 comments:

As I was doing some research on planned Super Kmart Centers, I found this information on the Super Kmart Centers of NY, along with some additional information:

Planned Super Kmart Centers in the Buffalo, NY region:

Plans for these four stores came out in 1993, and were then scrapped later that year due to, what Kmart claimed, was too much grocery competition in the area from Tops Friendly Markets and Wegmans.

1. SE Corner of Transit Road and Greiner Road, Clarence, NY: Now the site of Westgate Plaza, anchored by BJ’s, Wal-Mart Supercenter, and other big box stores.2. ???3. ???4. ???

I was only able to find information on one of these stores online, but if you can figure out a way to access this article here, you can probably find the location of the three missing planned Buffalo area stores. I tried everything but I can’t seem to get in to it: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9401101166/kmart-super-centers-open-buffalo

Planned Super Kmart Centers in the Albany, NY Region:

Plans for these four stores came out at the same time the ones for the Buffalo stores came out, but unlike the Buffalo plans that were scrapped, all four of the stores planned for this region were actually built, though only three were built as Super Kmart Canters.

1. 4930 State Highway 30, Amsterdam, NY – Already featured, Closed 20002. 308 Dix Avenue, Queensbury (Glens Falls), NY – Still Open – Featured under Current Super Kmart Centers3. 800 Miron Lane, Kingston, NY – Already featured, Closed 20034. 79 Weibel Avenue, Saratoga Springs, NY - **New** - opened in 1993 as a relocation from in town, and was the same model store as the Carlisle, PA and Jamestown, NY Kmarts. I have no reason for why this store wasn’t built as a Super Kmart Center, but by some new information I found it says this site was bought with the intention that a Super Kmart Center was going there, but instead a Big Kmart was built along with a Hannaford Supermarket in the parking lot. This store ended up closing on June 2, 2002 as one of the 283 stores closed as a result of Kmart declaring bankruptcy earlier that year. It sat vacant until 2007 when 3/4 of the store was torn down for a new Kohl’s, and later the remaining 1/4 of the store (the garden center portion) became a Tractor Supply Company.

(I had nowhere else to post this, so I included it here) - Planned Super Kmart Center 13901 Manchester Meadows, Town and Country, MO:

- A Super Kmart Center was planned for the Manchester Meadows Shopping Center in Town and Country, Missouri, but due to the city’s restriction on what hours of the day the stores in the shopping center could operate during, Kmart backed out of the deal and the anchor spot was then given to Wal-Mart, who built a new supercenter on the site to replace a small Wal-Mart store down the street. And in a strange twist that I’ve never seen before, in 2009, Wal-Mart closed this supercenter to replace it with a new, bigger supercenter down the street in the neighboring city of Manchester. The Wal-Mart building is currently vacant.

This link: http://dyson.cornell.edu/outreach/extensionpdf/1993/Cornell_AEM_eb9315.pdf has lots of information on how ambitious Kmart’s Supercenter plans were in the beginning, and it it also mentions planned Super Kmart Center stores in Minneapolis, MN, St. Paul, MN and Minnetonka, MN that I couldn’t find locations or any other information on.

The one in Clarence was built to replace a Kmart on the Northwest corner (where Walmart now is)BJ's is at the planned Super Kmart site and the Kmart across the street closed in 2002. Here is a Kmart in the area that may have been built with plans to become Super Kmart http://binged.it/MBGeXB

Maybe the site the West Seneca Kmart (the one in the link above) is on was supposed to be one of the planned Super Kmart Centers (it's the site of the long gone Seneca Mall, which was mostly vacant for a while until it was demolished in 1994, right around the time the Super Kmart plans were scrapped, for a new power center called The Shops at West Seneca, of which only the Tops and Big K were built), but I don't think that the Big Kmart they eventually built and opened around 1998-2000ish was built with the intent to be expanded at any point into a Super Kmart since it was paired with the large Tops right next to it.

I found plans for a Super Kmart south of Albany. Here are the coordinates a Walmart was built at the site. 42.609125,-73.792849 Also, Walmart's address is 311 Route 9W; Glenmont, NY. Plans for this store were cancelled in 1996.

According to these articles (#1, 3, & 4): http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SL&p_theme=sl&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=super%20kmart&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=2000%20-%202008|2011|1988%20-%202000|2000&p_field_advanced-0=&p_text_advanced-0=(%22super%20kmart%22)&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:A&xcal_useweights=no , the Town and Country Super Kmart was never built and Kmart never occupied the site. The spot in the shopping center went directly to Wal-Mart for them to build a new superstore when Kmart pulled out before construction on the new shopping center started. This new Wal-Mart Supercenter was only Wal-Mart's 10th or so superstore when Kmart scrapped their plans there in 1993. Wal-Mart's first Supercenter, built in Washington, MO in 1988, roughly 40 miles west from Town and Country, was somewhat small and had only one entrance, and Wal-Mart was still experimenting with the concept at the time, so my best guess would be that Wal-Mart used the plans for the Super Kmart that Kmart submitted to the builders of the shopping center before they pulled out, because now that I'm looking at the building closer, the front of the building where it says 'Wal-Mart' and the two triangular entrances are very similar to the Super Kmart style. I think what happened here was that the Super Kmart Center was still built after they pulled out of the project...but for Wal-Mart to use as their own Supercenter instead!

KMART SET TO BUILD 4 SUPER STORES HERE FIRST IS PLANNED FOR CLARENCE; ALL WILL INCLUDE FULL-LINE FOOD MARKETSThe Buffalo News - Thursday, September 9, 1993Author: RICK STOUFFER and DICK DAWSON - News Staff ReportersKmart plans to build four super stores in the Buffalo area that combine the chain's discount retail operations with full-line food markets.

The first Super Kmart is planned on a 65-acre parcel that the nation's second-biggest retailer has purchased near Transit and Greiner roads in Clarence.

Another is planned on Niagara Falls Boulevard, real estate sources say. The other two locations are unknown. The plans for the Super Kmart follow announcements that Wal-Mart, the No. 1 retailer in the nation, is opening several stores in Western New York. But none of the Wal-Mart outlets will include supermarkets.

Anthony J. Renaldo, the local real estate attorney representing Pittsburgh-based developer Glimcher Group Inc., Wednesday evening submitted a The plan calls for a 170,000-square-foot Super Kmart as well as a 110,000-square-foot building and an additional 81,000 square feet of retail space that will contain one or more of Kmart Corp.'s other retailing subsidiaries: Pace Warehouse Club, Builders Square, Walden Books, Sports Authority or Office Max, according to Clarence Supervisor Irving W. "Skip" Grenzebach Jr.

Kmart will pay $350,000 a year in county, town and school property taxes on the main building, town officials said.

Kmart executives hope to open more than 15 Super Kmarts this year nationally and 400 to 450 by 1998. The retail-supermarket megacenter is a concept that rival Wal-Mart also is rapidly constructing across the country.

Kmart wants to begin construction in Clarence "as soon as possible and to be open by Christmas 1994," Renaldo said.

Renaldo also is attorney for Benchmark Development Group, developer of the recently announced Wal-Mart project in Amherst.

The move by Kmart and Wal-Mart, the No. 1 retailer in the nation, to open stores combined with their own supermarkets is designed to bring in people -- not profits, according to Don Spindel, a St. Louis-based retail analyst with A.G. Edwards& Sons.

"Food brings in traffic, even though you don't make much on food," he said.

Glimcher had sought entrances to the site from both Transit and Greiner, but protests from residents on Greiner led town officials to reject the idea.

"The Greiner Road entrance was part of discussions as long as the entire project has been on the fire, since late spring," Grenzebach said. "But a lot of people in the area did not want an entrance on Greiner, and we had to respect their wishes."

Thank you for finding this. I have a map of all planned or former Super Kmart stores I know of under the maps tab; I have not added them to the location lists. Thank you, I knew of the Clarence store but not the one on Niagara Fall Boulevard. I think the answer on the locations of the other two may be found by searching near Kmart stores in the Buffalo area that were open in 1993.

Interesting on the Glenmont location (where the Wal-Mart now exists) as Kmart had a then existing store in the Town Center Plaza at the corner of 9W and Glenmont Rd, which is about 1/4 mi (ish) South of the Walmart site.

That store was fairly small compared to others in the area (and had what looked to be areas where the walls had been moved in to make more stock space and less floor space).

It closed a number of years back and about 1/3 or so was demolished as Tractor Supply took over most of the remaining part of the building and uses the demolished section as a fenced area for larger items.

1.http://binged.it/Omb8USAn empty lot at Transit Road and William Street was vacant in the 1990s and is now home to Walmart. It is near a 1970s style Kmart and it seems reasonable that a Super Kmart could have been built there.

2. http://binged.it/OmcWgGThe West Seneca Mall was torn-down in 1994, so it is possible Super Kmart may have been planned to anchor a shopping center that replaced the mall. To further support this theory a regular Kmart did open here after the plans for the four Super Kmart stores in Buffalo were cancelled.

KMART CORP. UPDATING WNY STORES, ADDING MOREThe Buffalo News - Wednesday, August 3, 1994Author: SHARON LINSTEDT - News Business ReporterKmart is continuing to pump money into its Western New York stores, with the company's Orchard Park location the current local focus of the chain's $6.5 billion national remodeling campaign.

The Michigan-based retailer's "Store Renewal Program" will soon result in a $2 million face lift for the Orchard Park Kmart, located at 3195 Southwestern Blvd.

Dave Ward, Kmart regional manager for Western New York, said the updated Kmart will feature wider aisles, upgraded fixtures and a generally brighterappearance.

"It's a fresher look, with more space to shop and expanded product lines to buy. We're pretty excited about the new look," Ward said.

The remodeling project also will free up space formerly dedicated to back office operations, making room for Kmart's new "Jackson Patio" department, featuring a variety of seasonal items for home and garden.

The renewed Kmart also will house a Little Caesar's Pizza restaurant, which will replace the traditional Kmart in-store lunch counter. Kmarts at 998 Broadway in Buffalo and at 1701 Niagara Falls Blvd., Amherst, already offer the updated cuisine.

A number of other local communities also will see big changes in their Kmarts, including a few areas where brand new stores are scheduled for construction in the next year.

New Kmarts will open this fall in Batavia and Wellsville. The Wellsville store will go up across the street from the current location in a new development called Riverwalk. That new retail center also will feature a Tops supermarket.

It's also expected Hamburg shoppers will see a new Kmart built on a site adjacent to Town Hall Plaza. The project will likely get a green light this week. The new store will replace an outdated Kmart at 5450 Southwestern Blvd.

Jamestown-area shoppers are expected to get their first Kmart, as the chain finalizes plans to build a new 110,000-square-foot store in the Town of Ellicott. The company was scheduled to receive bids on that project this week.

The retailer also reportedly is reviewing preliminary plans for expansion of its Transit Road store in Williamsville, as well as ways to expand its stores in Lackawanna and Depew. Kmart officials could not confirm details of those projects.

To date, 10 of Kmart's 22 Western New York stores have undergone face lifts since the corporation's nationwide

modernization efforts got under way in 1990. At the end of 1993, about 1,300 Kmart's had been remodeled, representing 57 percent of the chain's stores.

Plans call for the completion of virtually all of the physical updating phase of the renewal program by the end of 1996. At that time Kmart will be operating more than 2,500 modern, full-size retail stores nationwide.

Kmart's goal in reconfiguring its stores is to increase internal selling space from the old-style 70,000-square-foot models to stores averaging between 109,000 to 117,000 square feet of selling space.

Where site space allows and customer traffic is strong, a number of stores also are seeing external expansion, and in some cases, brand new stores are being constructed.

Kmart corporate spokesperson Mary McGeschey also declined to comment on rumors that the on-again, off-again Super Kmart Center planned for a site

at Transit and Greiner Roads in Clarence, is now on again.

The so-called "Super K " originally was planned as one of four of Kmart's combination supermarket/retail centers to debut in the Buffalo area this year.

In late 1993, Clarence officials declared the developer deal was "dead," citing Buffalo's highly competitive supermarket industry as the main reason behind Kmart's decision to forego grocery operations at local stores.

Word of Kmart's backing off was followed by speculation the site might become home to a Wal- Mart . However, in recent weeks, sources in the construction industry have indicated Kmart's "Super K " plans are alive and well.

I worked at the Jamestown area (West Ellicott) Kmart, number 4726, from the day it opened in 1995 until 2000. I was even part of the setup crew that put the store together before it opened. I had just finished my freshman year of college and needed a summer job, and tge new Kmart was hiring a ton of people. It was great because where most jobs for young people, including most of my friends, paid minimum wage which was $4.25 at the time, Kmart paid $4.75, bumped to $5.00 after 90 days.

I still have very fond memories of working there. Alot if other young people wirked there and i made alot of new friends. The store was a really nice one, being new and all, and for the first few years was very busy. Unfortunately, as time went on, the novelty wore off, and from a combination of mismanagement, lack of customer service from a reduced staff, and the more established Walmart down the street taking businesses away, the store began to suffer. I soldiered on though, and by 2000 when i finally packed up and left the area, and Kmart, I was one of only about a dozen of the 200+ original staff remaining. I had worked my way up to Sporting Goods manager by the time I left, and that had been a fun department to run...drilling bowling balls, calling in background checks on firearms, filling out hunting and fishing licenses, and being only one of two persons with access to the "gun room" made me feel kind of important for a 23 year old kid just out of college.

The old Kmart is still there, surprisingly. It is very dead though, from what i have seen in my last few visits to my old hometown. My thinking is that the Jamestown area is big enough to need more than one big box retailer, so it still hangs on as a distant number 2 to Walmart, but the area is shrinking as the industry flees, and soon there may no longer be a need for it. Also, I believe the old Kmart in nearby Warren, PA closed, bringing some of that demand to Jamestown...and old 4788 in Dunkirk is long gone, replaced by a Home Depot.

I'll be sad to see Kmart go if it does. Seems like the company in general is dying a slow death. I'll never forget the days of donning the red vest and doing the bluelight special announcements in my departments. Good times indeed.

Kind of surprising that (given how Kohl's "reskinned" the part of the store in Kingston that they (and Target) didn't do similarly with the store in Amsterdam.They would have been of a similar age (not that old, not even 15 years old when they built their store(s)) and when you look at the Target it looks to be built almost identically sized (just not as wide) as the Kmart building was. Kohl's could have then used the rest, and placed an addition to the left side or brought it out further into the front lot if there wasn't enough room.

Kohl's "reskins" pretty much any store they take over that wasn't Kohl's originally. They also gut the inside and build a Kohl's interior. It is impossible to tell many of these stores were not originally a Kohl's from inside or outside. Kohl's has taken over tons of different stores including some Kmart, Gold Circle, MainStreet'), and some department stores. The majority of Kohl's stores (at least in my area) are ground-up builds though.

I think of Target as a weird company. They are VERY centrally managed and even the store managers have little say over the store. They send stores the exact layout of products they want on the shelf and employees aren't allowed to vary AT ALL from those. This is why things happen there like "adult" toys have wound up in the kids sections and Doritos have been put in the refrigerators at hundreds of Target stores. This is also part of the reason they failed in Canada too. The shelves at the Canadian were half bare a lot of times because they were missing half the items they carried while stockrooms were overflowing with stuff the stores already had on the shelves. They weren't allowed to fill the shelves up with that merchandise. They want most locations to have the same look and layout no matter where you are.

The difference in layout of the Super Kmart building could be part of the reason they tore-down the Amsterdam Kmart. Sure, the store was sitting empty but I doubt it was in bad enough condition to justify tearing down. Target has taken over Kmart stores in the past. They have moved a Super Target into a former Super Kmart in the Chicago area. If I recall correctly there is another one in an old South California Super Kmart. There is a Target just south of downtown Boston that took over a Kmart and you can still tell by lookin at it that it was a Kmart.

The last Kmart standing in the Albany, NY area is at a mall that's under redevelopment just outside Schenectady, Rotterdam Square Mall. The Sears at the other end is now closed, but I don't know whether the new owners will want to keep Kmart as a tenant past the end of its current lease.

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